She gasped. And gasped again when the tip of his tongue slipped through to taste her. He made a sound of appreciation deep in his throat and lifted her higher against his body. This was like being in a bear’s embrace. He was so big and hot and strong, and she felt so deliciously fragile in his arms.
Fragile yet strangely powerful.
She flexed gloved hands against the curls at his nape, striving to etch each sensation into her memory. In the lonely years to come, she would take out this exquisite moment and relive every detail. The subtle movement of his lips, soft yet demanding. The scent of his skin, warm male and sharp air. The press of the snow at her back. The way his arms lashed her into his chest as if he never wanted to let her go.
This time when his tongue flicked along the seam of her lips, Maggie opened to him. Immediately the kiss changed, flaring from gentle exploration to urgent demand.
When he slid his tongue into her mouth, she gave a muffled whimper. But the strangeness faded as desire burgeoned. A deep, insistent throbbing started between her legs, and she instinctively tilted her hips toward him.
Joss groaned and sucked her tongue into his mouth. Despite her innocence, Maggie recognized a blatant invitation to imitate how he kissed her. Feeling daring, she flickered her tongue along his. His salty taste flooded her senses and made her blood pump with wanton heat. She buried her hands in his hair and gave herself up to him.
His hands stroked along her body, until the barrier of clothing between them became unbearable. She made a soft sound of discontent and bowed up to press against him. His hand caught her breast, and despite all those layers of wool, the shock of the contact made her stiffen. Her nipple tightened in swift, aching demand for more.
“Hell,” he muttered and wrenched away to collapse flat on his back beside her.
Maggie didn’t immediately move, although the snow had started to seep through her thick clothing. His kisses had been so intoxicating, she lay lost in a dream of delight. Her lips tingled from the cold air and the pressure of his.
Then she turned her head and was dismayed to see how wretched he looked. “Joss?”
“We shouldn’t have done that.” She’d never heard him sound so grim.
Oh, dear Lord. Had she done something to displease him? She’d loved his kisses, but perhaps her inexperienced enthusiasm had disgusted him.
Feeling sick, she pushed herself up on her elbows, the better to read his expression. Then was sorry that she had. He looked tormented, and deep lines bracketed his mouth.
“I thought…I thought you liked it,” she said in a shaky voice.
He stared up at the trees, as if they held the answer to all his questions. “Of course I bloody liked it,” he bit out. “Too much.”
She frowned, not understanding how his ardor had changed so quickly to this bitterness. “Then why are you angry with me?”
His lips turned down in self-derision. “I’m not angry with you.”
She shivered at his curt tone. As the afternoon drew in, the air grew colder. When Joss had kissed her, she’d foolishly imagined she’d never feel cold again. “Then what’s wrong?”
At last he looked at her. The green eyes were dull and unhappy. “You’re not that innocent, Margaret.”
“Please call me Maggie,” she said quickly, even as she acknowledged that he was right to accuse her of being disingenuous about what they’d done. That hadn’t been a quick, flirtatious kiss to mark the end of a couple of enjoyable hours together. Those kisses said that he meant to bed her.
“Maggie.” The edge he lent the word in no way conveyed fondness, yet hearing him speak her name for the first time flooded her with forbidden pleasure. “From the moment I met you, I wanted to kiss you.”
Shocked, she sat up fully and studied his features. So far she’d known him as a lighthearted companion. But this man regarding her with somber green eyes was a more powerful adversary than she’d ever imagined.
Adversary? Why on earth did she call him that?
He wasn’t her enemy. Even if right now, his stare held no hint of softness.
She shivered again. Nothing to do with the worsening cold. Heaven help her, this new version of Joss Hale was still more compelling than the cheerful, charming companion she’d come to know over the last few days.
And she’d already lost her heart to that man.
Her breath cramped in her lungs. Oh, surely that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Could someone fall in love in four days?
She drank in the sight of him, imprinting him deep in her heart, and recognized that she could. She had.
“Have I frightened you?” he asked in that austere tone. He raised one knee and rested his arm on it, still watching her like a cat watched a mouse hole.
She shook her head. “No.”
At her swift denial, the flat line of his lips relaxed a fraction. “I’m glad.” He sucked in an audible breath. “But now I have kissed you, I need to leave. You see that, don’t you?”
She bit back a cry to think of him going away. “Do you mean I’ll never see you again?”
“I’ll come back to you, Maggie. Once Jane gets home.”
“But it won’t be the same.” She bit her lip and stared out across the ice, blinking hard, telling herself she wouldn’t cry. “I’ll be the housekeeper, and you’ll be the guest. We won’t be…alone.”
She glanced back in time to catch a hunted expression crossing his face. “It’s us being alone that’s the problem.”
“Nobody knows,” she said quickly. “Nobody needs to know.”
“And what if I can’t keep my hands off you?” he asked roughly. “Are you ready to share my bed, Maggie? Because if I stay, that’s exactly where you’re going to end up.”
She returned stare for stare. “You don’t imagine I can resist you?”
He shook his head, and at last a hint of his characteristic wry humor appeared. “We can’t resist each other, my darling.” They no longer touched, but she’d never been so conscious of another person’s nearness. “Or are you going to pretend that’s not true?”
Denying his statement would be too coy for words. This attraction had existed from the start, strengthening with every moment they’d spent together since.
“No. It’s true,” she said in a subdued voice.
Triumph flashed in his eyes, and he reached toward her. She leaned in, only to watch him draw away before he made contact.
“If I touch you, I won’t stop,” he said, and she flinched at the bleakness in his voice.
What was the point of arguing? He knew how vulnerable she was to him. “I won’t want you to stop,” she muttered miserably, raising her knees and clasping her shaking hands around them.
“You see?” With unusually clumsy movements, he began to unfasten his skates. “I’ll go back to the house and pack my things.”
“You can’t go tonight.” She grabbed his arm, as if meaning to keep him by force.
Gently he caught her hand and untangled it from his black sleeve. “I have to.”
“But it will be dark in a few hours, and I can smell snow in the air.” How she hated the whine in her voice. Even more she hated the thought of wandering around an empty house that Joss’s company had briefly turned into a home.
A muscle worked in that lean cheek. “You said it’s five miles to the village.”
“There’s nowhere to stay,” Maggie said in a thick voice, as she fumbled to unfasten her skates. “I told you. The nearest inn is in Tolbeath, and you won’t get there tonight.”
He picked up his hat from the snow and placed it on his disheveled dark head. “Someone in Little Flitwick will take me in.”
“And ask questions. Wouldn’t it be better to stay tonight?”
Wouldn’t it be better to stay forever?
But she quailed from asking that question. Joss was attracted to her, she knew, but that didn’t mean he wanted more than a quick tumble. They’d only met four days ago, after all.
So what
exactly did she want of him, apart from more kisses? Passion that went beyond kisses? For all her brave words, she wasn’t ready to forsake the code of a lifetime and share his bed until he returned to London. Stirring, forbidden pictures of Joss’s big body moving above hers in the act of love invaded her mind. A yearning so sharp, it verged on excruciating made her blood spike.
She couldn’t be his mistress. Did that mean she awaited a proposal?
That stretched the limits of the possible. Outside the world of fairytales, handsome princes didn’t wed humble maidservants and sweep them back to their palaces for a life of happily ever after.
Even if Joss contemplated a commitment, she was agonizingly aware of the gulf stretching between them. They might come from similar backgrounds, but over the years, she’d sunk a long way down in the world. It was perfectly clear that Josiah Hale could look higher for a bride than a penniless servant.
And how did Maggie know that he cared for her beyond a fleeting interest? While all of this was deathly serious to her, he might make a habit of flirting with chance-met girls on his travels. Perhaps she was another forgettable encounter among many.
But staring deep into his green eyes, she knew that was unfair. For the sake of her reputation, he was about to undertake a difficult, dangerous journey. He understood how much hung upon his actions.
Joss Hale was a man of honor. He recoiled at the prospect of ruining a virtuous woman.
The problem for the virtuous woman was his resolve only made him more appealing.
Holding the skates by their straps, he rose to loom over her. “Maggie, I don’t trust myself if I stay.” He sounded as miserable as she did. Whatever this attraction was between them, it was significant. For him as well as her. “You’re a vicar’s daughter. Giving yourself to me goes against everything you’ve been taught.”
When he extended his hand toward her, she didn’t immediately take it. Although if she sat here much longer, the snow would soak through to her petticoats. She avoided his eyes and rubbed her gloved hands together to hide their trembling.
“I know,” she said in a low voice.
Every week in church, she spoke the words, entreating the Lord not to lead her into temptation. She’d never before understood what temptation meant. Dear heaven above, she started to understand now.
Temptation, large, intriguing, irresistible, stood there, watching her, as if he read every wicked longing in her heart. “Come back to the house.”
She blinked back more tears and struggled to tell herself that she made too much of this. What she felt for Joss must be a passing madness. He was the first man to kiss her, the first man to treat her like an attractive woman. No wonder she imagined herself in love with him.
A mere four days couldn’t change her forever. And the Margaret Carr who was her parents’ daughter would never crawl into a stranger’s bed, just because she’d discovered the power of a man’s caresses. She was made of stronger stuff than that.
Maggie lifted her chin and turned to face Joss with a smile on her face. “Thank you for a lovely afternoon—I’d forgotten how much fun skating is.”
He didn’t smile back. She suspected she hadn’t managed much of a smile at that, but she was doing her best. Instead something that looked mortifyingly like compassion softened his green gaze to jade. “It’s been a wonderful few days, Maggie. I’ll never be sorry I found you.”
Unfortunately, she could imagine being very sorry indeed. She was a prisoner granted temporary freedom, but who faced a return to grim captivity. Her chains would weigh twice as heavily, now she’d tasted the sweetness of liberty.
Oh, dear. It was bad enough Joss feeling sorry for her. She didn’t need to add her own self-pity to the mix. It was time to count her blessings, and stop crying for the moon.
She was safe and sheltered. She’d shared kisses to build her dreams upon. And now she knew how it felt to have a man shaking with desire for her. A man she wanted.
The problem was that while Joss was here, she didn’t want to waste time storing up memories. She was too greedy for every moment of his company to worry about looking ahead to when he was gone. She wanted more of the raw, passionate experience.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
The bleak little aphorism didn’t lift her spirits. With a heart that felt weighted down with bricks, she accepted his hand and let him pull her to her feet. After gliding over the ice like a bird in flight, trudging home through the snow seemed an uninspiring way to travel.
Enough of the countrywoman remained for her to wish him on his way before darkness fell. He’d have a bad enough time reaching Little Flitwick in the remaining daylight.
He must go, although she loathed admitting it. Big, echoing Thorncroft Hall was too small to keep her apart from Joss, if they remained alone together under its roof.
Chapter 8
Joss strapped the last of his bags to Emilia’s saddle and gave her a pat to apologize. “I’m sorry, old girl. I know you’re not eager to be on your way. I’m not either.”
She whickered in response and bless her generous heart, followed readily enough when he led her out of her stall and into the aisle through the center of the stables.
Ahead, he could see the lowering late afternoon sky through the open doors. Maggie was right about the weather. The smell of snow lay sharp on the air.
Then a sight more dangerous by far than any bad weather appeared in the doorway.
“How is Emilia’s leg?” Maggie asked, coming into the stables but keeping her distance. Like him, she’d changed into dry clothes.
Joss hadn’t seen the woman who haunted his every thought since they’d returned to the house after skating. He’d gone upstairs to pack his few things, and she’d disappeared into the kitchens, he assumed. Downstairs anyway.
He’d guessed she avoided farewells. If she felt the way he did, like someone scraped out his liver with a rusty pitchfork, he couldn’t blame her.
By God, he didn’t want to go. And that reluctance was yet another sign that he must. And quickly.
His mother would be damned proud of him. If he ever told her about the lost, enchanted days in this hidden valley. Which of course he never would.
“She’ll carry me as far as the village,” he said, although he feared he might be too optimistic. Emilia had stopped limping yesterday, but she was a long way from full fitness.
“You could take Bob.”
“Then questions would be asked.”
“Oh, that’s right.” A wry smile curled Maggie’s lips and made him want to kiss her. Hell, he always wanted to kiss her. Now he’d actually done it, he was hungrier than ever. “I’m not very good at romantic intrigue.”
“The weather’s closing in.” And the night. What he’d give to be looking forward to lying in a nice warm bed beside Maggie, instead of tramping through a snowstorm. “I must go.”
“Yes, you must.” She didn’t move.
Nor did he. “I wondered whether you’d decided not to say goodbye.”
“I wouldn’t be such a coward.” Her shaking hand held out a small bundle. “I prepared some food. And I put a flask of Dr. Black’s best brandy in there, too.”
“Thank you.” Joss took the bundle and turned to pack it into his saddlebag with his sketchbooks. He had a few ideas for modernizing the house. But mostly he wanted to leave it as it was. It was lovely and unique and unspoiled. Like the woman who lived in it.
“I will come back, I swear,” he said into Emilia’s flank.
“I hope so,” Maggie said, and at last he heard her voice wobble.
It shouldn’t gratify him to know she grieved over his departure, but of course it did. When he rode away, he wanted her bawling her eyes out. He wanted her to cry until the triumphant day he galloped back down the drive and took her into his arms. That was how much of a bastard he was.
Joss turned to face her and immediately felt like a swine for wishing her unhappy. The misery in her expression twisted his
gut.
You’re leaving for her sake.
But the words rapidly lost any power. So rapidly that if he didn’t leave right now, he wouldn’t.
“There’s something I need to do first,” he said with sudden decision.
She frowned at him in puzzlement. “What?”
“This.”
He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her up against him.
Maggie gave a shocked squeak, followed by a delicious sigh of surrender as his mouth crashed down onto hers. When he’d kissed her in the snow, she’d been shy and uncertain, although she’d worked out the basics with impressive speed.
This time, he made no allowance for her inexperience and plundered her mouth with all the passion she stirred in his soul. She moaned into his mouth and twined around him, holding him like she never wanted to go another day without having him near.
Joss held onto her too long. He held onto her not nearly long enough.
He wrenched away, curling his hands around her arms to keep her upright as she sagged toward him. He didn’t feel too secure on his feet himself.
“Remember that, Maggie,” he said almost savagely. “Remember that, until I come back to you.”
She stared at him with wide blue eyes and didn’t speak as he flung himself on Emilia’s back and urged the mare into the cold air.
Joss didn’t look back. He didn’t trust himself to keep going if he did.
***
For a long time, Maggie stood in the stable doorway and looked out over the snowy hills surrounding the estate. Because of the lay of the land, she couldn’t see Joss as he rode down the drive and turned onto the road across the fields, the road that would eventually take him to the outside world. That outside world would quickly claim him back as its own, so he’d forget whatever charms he imagined he’d found in Fraedale.
As she waited, the afternoon grew colder, and it started to snow. Stamping her booted feet to restore circulation, she wrapped her shawl more closely about her, but didn’t think of going inside to the warmth.
Not yet.
The wind whistled around her ears and stung her cheeks and eyes. She wasn’t crying, but with every second that passed, the sorrow lodged in her stomach expanded. Until it was the size of a boulder. Until it was the size of a mountain, ready to tumble down and crush her to nothing.
Mistletoe Wishes Page 52
